Does KDE have a policy for shipping libraries licensed under the Apache license?

[Andrius Štikonas]

Hi,

Quick check seems to indicate that KDE Connect license is:

*GPL-2.0-only* OR GPL-3.0-only OR LicenseRef-KDE-Accepted-GPL

Apache v2 licensed code is not compatible with GPL-2.0-only but
is compatible with GPLv3. So by combining KDE Conenct with
that library you lose right to redistribute the whole thing
as GPL2 but you still have the right to redistribute combined code under

GPL-3.0-only OR LicenseRef-KDE-Accepted-GPL

I.e. you are essentially dropping GPLv2 support and only keeping GPLv3.
So you must first check that you have no GPLv2 only dependencies.

Kind regards,
Andrius

2022 m. gruodžio 19 d., pirmadienis 23:34:11 CET Simon Redman rašė:
> KDE Connect has had this PR languishing for a couple of years, with a 
> question I am not able to answer.
> https://invent.kde.org/network/kdeconnect-android/-/merge_requests/192
> 
> The author has added a (very useful) library, which happens to be 
> licensed under the Apache v2 license.
> 
> KDE Connect code is GPL-licensed. GPL section 2 says that the entire 
> work must be distributed as GPL. 
> https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.en.html
> 
> In my eyes, the only meaningful part of the work is the source code, at 
> which level the concept of distributing a library does not apply. The 
> .apk that we give to users is just a convenience to them, they could 
> just as well build it themselves. The .apk contains both the KDE Connect 
> GPL code and the Apache-licensed libraries, but by itself has no 
> specific license (and doesn't claim to).
> 
> But my view don't matter, what matters is what happens in court, in the 
> event anyone ever accuses KDE of violating license terms. As I am not 
> qualified to expose KDE to any additional risk, is there a policy (or 
> accepted precedent) for distributing Apache-licensed libraries?
> 
> Thanks,
> Simon
> 


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